An account of what I see, hear, smell, taste and touch in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts and beyond.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Murals Of People Painting Murals

I know that in my previous post I talked about negativity and how the city has too much of it and that there really needs to be more positivity and less negativity in Worcester. Well sometimes negativity is justified and this here new fangled mural is one of those occasions.

If you aren't familiar with his piece of civic genious it is at the corners of Franklin, Foster, Green and McGrath. Now don't me wrong, I am not slamming the artists. They were commissioned to do some public art and they did some public art. The only problem is that the public art that they did is a mural of people painting a mural. Does anyone remember the totally bad ass Oilzum advertisement that used to adorn this space? And now we get this?

I am not one to criticize without suggestion but something way way way better that screams "We Are Worcester And We Are Awesome!" Could have gone here. This is the kind of mural that you put in a troubled neighborhood to show everyone that the neighborhood gets along and that we are all working together to make the neighborhood a better place. That is the message this mural sends. It should be saying that our downtown district kicks serious ass or at least give that message.

"Welcome to the Canal District"

"Welcome to Worcester"

"Welcome To Green Island"

Any of these would have been better then this. The city needs public art and I applaud efforts to make this city more asthetically pleasing to the eye but I cannot applaud this. Worcester needs beautification in the worst way but this is heading in the wrong direction. Whomever approved this needs a slap. This mural will hurt more than it helps. A mural of people painting a mural. Wow.

4 comments:

my understanding of the "rainbow bridge" controversy is that there was a plan for it that didn't involve a canal, and then the canal people put up a huge stink. i think making the painting a painting of people painting the mural that the people painting the mural itself didn't want to paint is kind of funny. too bad it looks like garbage. i was really hoping it would actually say "canal district" on it somewhere so i could obviously paint over the c. ps the idea "canal district" is criminally moronic.

i totally agree that the bridge could've been much much better. i didnt really hear the bridge project being open to negotiation, just planned and executed with no options from artists that i know anyways. the old painting was sooo much better, just getting interesting with the peeling too.

Well at least they got the green man from Green Island staring at that bell-bottomed chick's ass involved incorporated nicely with the street signs in the second "Worcester Reads, Recycles and fails at Geography all-in-one"-esque mural.

I also like the nuclear bomb going off downtown in the first painting. A kintergarten allusion to a serious problem.

About Me

I live in Worcester, Massachusetts. I try to make the best of it by getting excited about the good things it does offer while at the same time thinking about how it could be better and live up to it's potential.